Whatever It Takes (To Open A Coffee Shop)
Hello friends!
Thank you so much for reaching out to me about the previous blog post (especially fellow food/bev business owners). It feels nice to know that we’re not alone!
As I’ve said in the masterplan blog, my goal for this series of posts is to make things as transparent as possible. Why? I don’t know; maybe so that consumers have better understanding about the business; maybe I can encourage (or discourage) some people to open their shops someday. I feel like that transparency has been the uniqueness in this business— people are not afraid to share their trade secrets (including their recipes, vendor information, equipment, etc.) because I think it allows the entire industry to be better. Who wouldn’t want that?!
Anyhow, so let’s talk about another obstacle in opening and operating a successful coffee shop: the sheer cost of the buildout. This is another thing that changed so much after the pandemic, but let’s talk about two factors: TIME and MONEY.
TIME
You’ve all known someone that told you, “Hey! I just signed a lease! I’m finally opening a coffee shop!” That same person, after a few weeks/months, might have given you an update such as “We’re in the buildout phase. We expect to be open by xxxx (Let’s say July, for example). This expected opening date would have been at least 4 months since they signed the lease. And then those 4 months passed, and you see that someone not opening their shop just yet, so you probably would have asked, “When are you supposed to open?” And their response would probably be: 1) “I don’t know :/” 2) “Well we’ve run into x, y, and z, so it’s gonna be a while” 3) “We just need to sort out this one thing.” So what happened here?
Nothing goes as planned during the buildout, especially how much it costs (but more on that later). If you sign a lease in what’s called “white shell” space, there’s nothing there. If that location has not been a food establishment with a bar layout like a coffee shop, the chances are, there would be some major construction needed in order for the city/county to let you open. And before you even think about calling a contractor or an architect to start building out your dream shop, you need to know what you’re gonna be making in there.
Do you want to cook food (not just avocado toasts and pastries)? Then you will need a hood system in there. Do you want the espresso machine facing the guests, or facing the back? You will need to bring in water, power, and drainage to wherever you are going to be placing certain equipment (espresso machine, water filtration system, sinks, the ice machine, etc.) Do you have any prep tables or other areas to prep your things? You don’t need to have your entire operation figured out before the buildout, but you should have a mental picture of what kind of service you would be doing. If not, you would be wasting a tremendous amount of time and money trying to fix things at a later stage.
So, once you have a mental picture of your coffee shop layout, it is time to seek out an architect who can draw the plans, and submit the plan check to your local city/county. Permitting process can be quite arduous; depending on jurisdiction, you may not even get to break ground for weeks because the plan check department keeps rejecting your drawing. I had to deal with San Diego County post-pandemic, and the process was online only. I could not go into their office and talk to a live person; everything had to be just a submission of documents, and the person reading over the drawing/plan would mark the documents for clarification or correction. Each submission took up to 10 business day for the county to respond, and the whole process ended up taking MONTHS.
After the city or county approves your plans, then you need to find a general contractor (sometimes the architects are also GCs, and vice versa) to start the buildout construction. Make sure you find someone that has experiences building out a food establishment (i.e. restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc.). They should know what materials to use and what certain requirements are for passing the health inspection. The most common ones are: backsplash materials (need to be tiles, FRP (fiber reinforced plastic), stainless steel, or glossy paint that is easy to clean), countertop/surface materials, coving, flooring, etc. You might have seen cool coffee bars from Europe or Asia and want to replicate their “vibes,” but your health inspector will see things differently and may not let you open a space like that.
After the buildout is finished, and you have ordered and installed all the equipment (which also are never in stock anymore post-COVID), you can get a health inspector to come out and give you the final stamp of approval. Now, all you need to do is finalize your menu, hire staff, train them, and open! This sounded really easy and smooth, but many people often experience delays and obstacles to get to this stage. So the next time a friend of yours opens a restaurant or a coffee shop, make sure you give them a big hug.
In the next blog post, I’ll talk about the cost of building out a shop. Stay tuned!